The Doctor, Romana and K-9 visit an old friend, a retired Time Lord
named Professor Chronotis now living as a professor in Cambridge. There
they encounter the evil scientist Skagra, who has come to steal a
Gallifreyan text in Chronotis' possession. With the book, Skagra can
locate Shada, the Gallifreyan prison planet, where he intends to force
Salyavin, a Time Lord criminal with vast mental powers, to help
him imprint his mind upon every being in the cosmos.

Production

Although Doctor Who producer Graham Williams and script editor
Douglas Adams had set out with the intent of showcasing new writers
during Season Seventeen, a series of scripting misadventures had
derailed these plans. Already, Williams had been forced to proceed with
one adventure -- The Horns Of Nimon -- that
he was less than enthusiastic about, and by late June, he and Adams were
still searching for a season finale. Williams was contemplating leaving
Doctor Who at the end of Season Seventeen, and so he was keen
that this last serial be particularly memorable. Indeed, he had
allocated the year's budget in such a way as to ensure that the finale
would not be made on a shoestring, as had been the case with The Invasion Of Time and The Armageddon Factor during his first two
years on the job.

Finally, no choice remained but to seek permission for Adams to write
the six-part adventure himself. This was formally requested on July
18th, 1979 (and granted on August 15th), but Adams had begun working on
the storyline from around June 29th. Initially, Adams considered
developing an idea he had had for a two-part serial, in which the Doctor
retires only to find himself constantly summoned back from his
seclusion. Williams rejected this idea, which he felt would be perceived
as mocking Doctor Who.

Douglas Adams wanted to write about capital punishment, by
exploring what the Time Lords would do with their worst criminals

Instead, Adams decided to delve once more into Time Lord mythos. This
was something which Williams had actively avoided since Season Fifteen,
because he thought that Gallifreyan society had become overexposed.
Adams, however, saw an opportunity to write a relevant story about
capital punishment, by exploring what a highly-advanced civilisation
like the Time Lords would do with their worst criminals. In deference to
Williams' wishes, he decided to set his adventure away from Gallifrey
itself, and opted instead for his home town of Cambridge. This would
allow him to draw upon his own experiences there as a university
student.

At the time, however, Adams was extremely busy working on various
iterations of his popular The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Consequently, he and Williams worked closely together on what became
known as “Sunburst”, much as they had done while reworking
City Of Death earlier the same year.
Nonetheless, Williams decided that Adams should receive the sole credit
on the scripts, in deference to the fact that Adams planned to continue
his writing career beyond his time on Doctor Who.

The hastily-conceived “Sunburst” evolved quickly; Adams was
not entirely happy with the resulting scripts, which he felt were
bloated. Various changes were made during development: Chronotis
originally perished in episode two but Adams had become fond of the
character and decided to bring him back, while the Krargs were initially
called Kraags (an anagram of “Skagra”). Adams named the
characters of Chris Parsons and Clare Keightley after his friend Chris
Keightley, president of the Cambridge Footlights. The Thinktank
scientists all bore names associated with Greek islands: Caldera,
Akrotiri, Ia, Santori and Thira. Amusingly, the episode one joke in
which Professor Chronotis forgets that he has a mind like a sieve was
taken from a story of Adams' that had been published in the February
27th, 1965 edition of Eagle And Boy's World, when he was just
twelve years old.

On August 2nd, Head of Drama Graeme McDonald wrote to Williams to
comment on “Sunburst”. He was in agreement with Adams' own
assessment that the serial was too thin for its six-episode length,
although his suggestion that the material be extended with a romantic
subplot between Chris and Romana was ignored. By late August, the
adventure -- designated Serial 5M -- had been retitled Shada.
Originally, its director was intended to be Michael Hayes, who had last
worked on City Of Death. In the event,
however, Hayes was replaced by Pennant Roberts, whose most recent
Doctor Who credit had been on the previous season's The Pirate Planet, also scripted by Adams.

The unions recognised Doctor
Who as an important target for labour action

Filming for Shada began on October 15th. The main item on this
day's agenda was the material involving the Doctor and Romana punting on
the River Cam, while some scenes on the streets of Cambridge were also
recorded. The next day dealt with sequences in the field where Skagra's
invisible ship lands, as well as the nearby country road; these were
taped at Grantchester in Cambridgeshire.

Unfortunately, the first intimations of labour troubles touched
Doctor Who on this day. This was the latest in a virtually annual
series of industrial disputes which had already plagued the recording of
The Invasion Of Time and The Armageddon Factor in recent years. In this
instance, Roberts had booked two lighting crews for the ambitious
nighttime chase sequence which formed the climax of episode two; this
was due to be recorded on the 18th. Roberts' plan was to tape a scene
with one team while the other went ahead to set up the next location.
However, the unions recognised Doctor Who as an important target,
and on the 16th they summoned the lighting chargehand back to London. As
a result, Roberts had to abandon a shot of the Doctor travelling to the
Cavendish Laboratory (where Chris was meant to have his lab), which had
also been planned for this day.

The main location for October 17th was Emmanuel College, posing as St
Cedd's. Originally, Williams and Adams had hoped to film these sequences
at Adams' own college, St John's, but their request had been denied in
mid-July. Additional street scenes were also completed on this day. On
the 18th, the continued absence of the lighting chargehand meant that
the scheduled night shoot had to be cancelled. Instead, Roberts and
Williams decided to rewrite the scenes for daytime recording on the
19th, taking in various Cambridge roadways. With these amendments
completed, Roberts retired with Baker to a local pub. There they were
approached by the secretary of the St John's Choristers, who enquired as
to whether Doctor Who might make use of his choir's services.
Roberts agreed and included the Choristers as part of the chase scene
the next day; Baker was made an honorary fellow of St John's College in
return.

With the troubled location shoot concluded, effects work began at the
Ealing Television Film Studios on October 22nd. This was followed by the
first studio session, spanning November 3rd to 5th in BBC Television
Centre Studio 3. The initial day began with recording of the Think Tank
scenes for the opening episode, which was followed by material in
Chronotis' study; taping on the latter set continued throughout the
remainder of the block. Also completed on the 5th were sequences in the
brig, the remaining Think Tank scenes, and some model shots.

On November 19th cast and crew returned after lunch to
find the studio doors locked

More model and effects work was conducted at Ealing on November 15th and
16th. This should have been followed by a two-day studio block on the
19th and 20th in TC6. By now, however, the labour dispute had escalated.
Although rehearsals went ahead as scheduled on the morning of November
19th, cast and crew returned to the studio after lunch to find the doors
locked: the industrial action had forced the postponement of all
recording at Television Centre.

The fate of Shada was now unclear. Three further studio days were
planned for December 1st to 3rd in TC3, but as the strike dragged on,
Roberts' team was faced with a new problem. Many of the productions
which had been delayed by the strike were Christmas programmes, viewed
by the BBC as critical to their broadcast schedule. Consequently, it was
unlikely that Shada would retain its original recording dates,
even if the strike were settled in time. Roberts proceeded with
rehearsals, but on November 30th, Williams met with McDonald to discuss
the situation. Williams was forced to reluctantly concede that his
Doctor Who swansong would never be completed, and ordered the
cast and crew of Shada to stand down. As it happened, the BBC
reached an agreement with the unions the very next day.

Nonetheless, Williams continued to investigate the possibility of
remounting the five abandoned studio days later in December. It quickly
became clear, however, that Shada could not be booked into the
studio until at least January 1980, even assuming that the appropriate
budgetary allocation could be secured. With the serial scheduled to
begin transmission on January 19th, this effectively settled the matter.
On December 10th, it was officially decided that The Horns Of Nimon would mark the end of a
truncated Season Seventeen.

This turn of events brought an unhappy end to the tenures of both Graham
Williams and Douglas Adams on Doctor Who. Williams would
continue to work as a producer through much of the Eighties on shows
like Supergran and Tales Of The Unexpected. He also wrote
a serial entitled “The Nightmare Fair” for the abortive
original version of Doctor Who's twenty-third season, which he
subsequently novelised for Target Books. His passion for television
faded, however, and in the late Eighties Williams left the industry and
took over the running of a hotel near Tilverton in Devon, where he also
became a town councillor. Sadly, Williams died in a shooting accident at
his hotel on August 17th, 1990.

Adams went on to great fame thanks to The Hitchhiker's Guide To
Galaxy. In addition to further radio plays and a television
adaptation, Adams wrote four sequels to the original Hitchhiker's
novel. He also published several other books, encompassing both fiction
and non-fiction. One of these was the 1987 novel Dirk Gently's
Holistic Detective Agency, which recycled various ideas from
Shada including the character of Professor Chronotis. Adams was
living in California and working on a proposed feature film version of
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (ultimately released in
2005) when he suffered a fatal heart attack on May 11th, 2001.

Williams' successor as Doctor Who's producer was former
production unit manager John Nathan-Turner. Although he was without a
script editor, Nathan-Turner quickly began formalising his plans for
Season Eighteen. In particular, he was eager to do away with six-part
stories like Shada, which he felt were too long and overextended
to hold viewers' interest. During November, Nathan-Turner had
successfully obtained funding from BBC1 Controller Bill Cotton for two
extra episodes of Doctor Who. This meant that Season Eighteen
would consist of seven four-part adventures, making it the longest
Doctor Who season since Season Six in 1968-69.

By this time, Nathan-Turner had met the acquaintance of diehard fan Ian
Levine. Levine was a collector of old Doctor Who episodes, and
gave the new producer access to his library. With Levine's
encouragement, Nathan-Turner decided that Doctor Who should
appeal more directly to its fanbase by mining its history for story
ideas. He further concurred with Levine that Williams' and Adams'
humorous approach to the programme was deterring its longtime
aficionados, and agreed that Season Eighteen should target a more
serious and mature audience.

Nathan-Turner had also become concerned with his regular cast of
characters. He thought that the Doctor, Romana and K-9 formed too
invulnerable a unit, making it difficult for writers to convincingly
place them in danger, and for viewers to relate to them. During the
production of Shada, he and Ward had discussed Romana's future on
Doctor Who, and the actress agreed that she would bow out partway
through the eighteenth season. This was not entirely to Ward's chagrin,
as she was eager to pursue opportunities beyond Doctor Who, and
was not happy with Nathan-Turner's plan to downplay the comedy elements
that she and Baker preferred. Consequently, when Ward was contracted on
January 16th, it was for only the first twenty episodes of the new
season.

John Nathan-Turner felt that the Doctor, Romana and K-9
were too invulnerable, making it difficult to place them in danger

Nathan-Turner's search for a script editor led him to initially offer
the post to Johnny Byrne. Nathan-Turner knew Byrne from his days as
production unit manager on All Creatures Great And Small, to
which Byrne had contributed several scripts. Byrne was not willing to
move to London from his home in Norfolk, however, although he was
interested in developing a serial for Doctor Who.

Instead, Shoestring producer Robert Banks Stewart -- who had
written Terror Of The Zygons and The Seeds Of Doom for Doctor Who's
thirteenth season -- suggested that Nathan-Turner approach a former
colleague of his named Christopher H Bidmead. Originally an actor,
Bidmead had begun writing for television in the early Seventies
(including contributions to Harriet's Back In Town and
Rooms) and was also working as a journalist, concentrating on
science and technology. Bidmead was initially reluctant to accept the
job on Doctor Who after he was approached in late December: he
felt that the show had wallowed in fantasy instead of championing hard
science in recent years. He finally agreed, however, when Nathan-Turner
and executive producer Barry Letts convinced him that they shared these
concerns, and would be striving to ground Doctor Who more firmly
in reality. Bidmead began working on Doctor Who soon after New
Year's Day 1980.

On January 18th, Tom Baker was contracted for Season Eighteen. By this
time, he and Ward had agreed that their romance during the production of
the seventeenth season had been ill-advised, although they agreed to
maintain a healthy working relationship. Meanwhile, David Brierley had
approached Nathan-Turner about appearing on camera in a forthcoming
serial, in addition to his voicework as K-9. Nathan-Turner would not
acquiesce, however, and Brierley elected not to return to Doctor
Who for a second season. Brierley would continue to act on stage,
television and radio, earning credits on programmes such as The
Tripods, Coronation Street and Howards' Way. He died
of cancer on June 10th, 2008.

With Brierley's departure, Nathan-Turner attempted to coax John Leeson
back to Doctor Who. Leeson was the original voice of K-9, and had
left the show following Season Sixteen. Having decided that K-9's exit
from Doctor Who was imminent, Nathan-Turner was able to lure
Leeson back with the promise that he would be voicing the robot dog's
final few episodes. He was contracted for an initial eight episodes on
February 11th.

John Nathan-Turner considered remounting Shada as two 50-minute episodes for Christmas

Through all of these changes, Nathan-Turner had not forgotten about
Shada. On April 30th, the producer sent a revised set of scripts
to Pennant Roberts, to seek the director's input on the idea of
completing the serial in the form of two fifty-minute episodes to air
over Christmas. Plans for this remounted version of Shada moved
forward, and it was intended that a minimal cast would reunite for a
pair of two-day studio blocks in TC6 and TC3 during October. By June
25th, however, Nathan-Turner had been forced to abandon the project when
it turned out that the studio space was not available. Bidmead was also
unhappy with the concept, because he felt that Shada was out of
keeping with the new, more serious style that he and Nathan-Turner were
implementing for Season Eighteen. Nonetheless, Nathan-Turner arranged
for the extant Shada material to be preserved within the BBC
Archives for possible future use.

In 1983, an unofficial Shada compilation was prepared by Levine,
assisted by fellow fans Richard Landen, James Russell and Kevin Davies.
In addition to the completed location and studio material, they used
printed text from the rehearsal scripts in place of the unfinished
segments. This incarnation of Shada debuted at the Panopticon 5
convention in Birmingham on September 3rd and 4th. That same year, two
scenes from Shada were edited into The Five
Doctors. Tom Baker had declined to participate in the
twentieth-anniversary special, and so Nathan-Turner elected to use the
brief Shada clips in order to ensure that the Fourth Doctor had a
presence in the story.

In 1984, Noel “Snowy” Lidiard-White of BBC Enterprises
suggested to Nathan-Turner that Shada might be readied for
release on video. At the time, the Doctor Who VHS range was still
at its nascent stages, with the debut volume, Revenge Of The Cybermen, having been made
available only the year before. In November 1985, Nathan-Turner mooted
the possibility of having Colin Baker record linking narration in
character as the Sixth Doctor. He suggested that the Sixth Doctor could
either speak directly to the camera, or else be seen telling the story
of Shada to his companion, Peri, played by Nicola Bryant. Nothing
came of these ideas, however.

Finally, in 1991, BBC Video scored notable commercial successes with
several “special” Doctor Who releases, including an
extended version of the Season Twenty-Six story The
Curse Of Fenric, as well as Doctor Who: The Hartnell
Years and Doctor Who: The Troughton Years, two compilations
of episodes from stories that were no longer completely held by the BBC
Archives. Convinced that fans were enthusiastic about these non-standard
video releases, Nathan-Turner approached Tom Baker about recording
linking narration for Shada. Baker agreed, on the condition that
he would appear as himself and not as the Fourth Doctor.

With linking narration by Tom Baker, Shada was released on video in 1992

Several short clips of Baker were recorded on February 4th, 1992, at the
Doctor Who: Behind The Sofa exhibition at the Museum of the
Moving Image in London. David Brierley returned to record the rest of
K-9's dialogue (having already voiced the scenes taped in studio). Keff
McCulloch -- who had worked on several Doctor Who stories in the
late Eighties beginning with Time And The
Rani -- provided the score. McCulloch attempted to mimic the
style of Dudley Simpson, who had originally been due to compose the
incidental music for Shada. Various special effects were also
added or refined. The video was released on July 6th, 1992, finally
bringing Shada to the public eye after a delay of more than
twelve years.

Although Shada was now commercially available, there remained a
desire in some quarters to prepare a version of the adventure in which
all of the material was properly dramatised. When Big Finish Productions
began releasing original Doctor Who plays on compact disc in
1999, one of producer Jason Haigh-Ellery's early ideas was the
development of an audio version of Shada. This project gained
traction with BBCi, the team the responsible for the BBC's official
Doctor Who website. BBCi were planning a series of Doctor
Who webcasts (which was inaugurated with the pilot episode of
Death Comes To Time in 2001) and Shada was a perfect
fit. After considerable effort, Big Finish and BBCi successfully
obtained the necessary permissions from the estate of Douglas Adams.

An audio version of Shada
starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor was released in 2003

Haigh-Ellery and fellow Big Finish producer Gary Russell initially hoped
that Shada would tempt Tom Baker to reprise his role as the
Fourth Doctor. At the time, he was the only surviving Doctor who had not
appeared in a Big Finish Doctor Who play. Baker turned down the
offer, however, and so Haigh-Ellery and Russell instead approached Paul
McGann, whose Eighth Doctor was the most recent Doctor to have appeared
on television. Russell devised the notion that the events of The Five Doctors (in which clips of
Shada had appeared) had changed time so that the Fourth Doctor's
version of the adventure had been wiped from history. The Eighth Doctor
would come to this realisation, and seek the help of both Romana (who
had been established in other Big Finish plays as having assumed the
office of President of the Time Lords) and K-9 to set things right.

Big Finish's version of Shada was recorded between November 12th
and 14th, 2002. Russell amended the script with the help of director
Nicholas Pegg; they drew upon various drafts of Shada that Adams
had prepared in 1979, while also making some adjustments to account for
the audio medium. An entirely new cast was brought onto the project,
with the sole exception of Ward as Romana; K-9 was voiced on this
occasion by Leeson. The first episode of Shada premiered on the
BBC Doctor Who website on May 2nd, 2003, as part of the
festivities surrounding the programme's fortieth anniversary. The six
episodes were made available on a weekly basis, and each was accompanied
by limited animation featuring the artwork of Lee Sullivan. A slightly
extended edition of the play was then released on CD in December.